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Same store sales are down 2% over the last quarter, and Target is
hemorrhaging money.

Retail giant Target reported sales for the second quarter that fell more than
7% from a year ago -- and warned that another key measure of sales may drop in
the third quarter and fourth quarter.

The second half of the year is usually great for big retailers like Target.
Back-to-school shopping tends to boost sales in the late summer and consumers
typically splurge on presents for the holidays during the fall.

As a result, Target said same-store sales, which measures sales at retailers
open at least a year, could fall as much as 2% in the third and fourth quarters.
Target also slashed its earnings outlook for the third quarter.

Target Corp. said it will spend $20 million to add a private bathroom to each
of its stores by next year, following customer protests over its policy
allowing transgender individuals to use whichever restroom corresponds with
their gender identity.

Sure, if you're losing money, it's always a good idea to spend more money on
an unnecessary "upgrade."

Here's a pro-tip Target.

Go back to the old policy. Girls in the girls' room. And boys in the boys'
room. It's not rocket science.

CEO Brian Cornell had promised to roll out family restrooms earlier this year
and defended the company's stance on diversity.

Protests started at Target stores after the retailer said in April that it
welcomed transgender employees and guests to use the restroom or fitting room
that corresponded with their gender identity. "Everyone deserves to feel they
belong," the company wrote on its website.

By "everyone" Mr. Cornell means "freaks."

Everyone else has left the building, because they don't belong in Target's
Brave New World.

A North Carolina law limiting protections to LGBT people violates federal civil
rights protections and can't be enforced, the U.S. Justice Department said
Wednesday, putting the state on notice that it is in danger of being sued and
losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.

The law, which also requires transgender people to use public bathrooms that
conform to the sex on their birth certificate, has been broadly condemned by
gay-rights groups, businesses and entertainers, some of whom have relocated
offices or canceled shows in the state. Several other states have proposed
similar laws limiting LGBT protections in recent months.

In a letter to Gov. Pat McCrory, the Justice Department said federal officials
view the state law as violating federal Civil Rights Act protections barring
workplace discrimination based on sex. Provisions of the state law directed at
transgender state employees violate their anti-discrimination protections, the
letter said.

Poppycock.

Men, including genetically identifiable men, can use the men's room.

Women, including genetically identifiable women, can use the ladies
room.

"To use our children and their educational futures as pawns to advance an
agenda that will ultimately open those same children up to exploitation at
the hands of sexual predators is by far, the sickest example of the depths
the Obama Administration will stoop to 'fundamentally transform our nation.'"

A few molested kids is a small price to pay for transgender "equality,"
depths of depravity be damned.

The important thing here is that sexual deviants and mentally ill children
"feel good" about themselves.

Nevermind that those same children cannot ingest an aspirin, get a tattoo,
pierce their belly button, or lay in a tanning bed. But by golly they can
pretend they're "transgender!"

This is what the Obama administration is defending.

Children, deciding to reject their bodies, because "civil rights."

You know what? I was a fat, dorky kid in high school. Perhaps I should have
"identified" as a linebacker. Where's my varsity letter?

North Carolina is well within their rights to define the extent of their laws.

No law in North Carolina will prevent a woman from doing anything all other
women do. And no law in North Carolina will prevent a man from doing what all
other men in North Carolina do.

But I suppose Obama's transgender deviants have never met the Tenth
Amendment.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or
to the people.

In North Carolina, the "people" have spoken.

But Obama hates federalism.

He demands obeisance, because that's how he fundamentally transforms
America.

So go ahead Obama. Punish the children of North Carolina. Show their parents
just how petty and vindictive you really are. Withhold your federal education
dollars. Close the national parks and shut down highway construction too. Make
it clear that the citizens must acquiesce to deviancy just to recoup their own
tax dollars.

Just remember that the Boston Tea Party arose for a comparatively lesser
tyranny. And be advised accordingly.

Because that's how much Uber agreed to pay in exchange for the "right" to
operate there, after the city council threatened to impound drivers' cars
unless
they each paid $1,000 a year for a "Liberty License."

Hours after
announcing the deal that will allow Uber to continue operating in the city,
the office of Mayor Ras Baraka on Saturday released details of the tentative
agreement.

Under terms of the deal, Uber will pay the city a $10 million fee to operate
at Newark Liberty International Airport for the next 10 years.

The company has also agreed to provide $1.5 million in liability coverage for
all drivers in its network, conduct background checks of each one and to
install and enforce a zero-tolerance drug and alcohol abuse policy.

Gangster government at its, uh, finest.

Oh, by the way, this agreement means Baraka sold out his taxi driver buddies.

Lionel Leach, president of CWA Local 1039, the union that represents nearly
300 taxi drive and has pushed for regulations to "level the playing field"
between taxi and rideshare companies said the agreement fails to meet that goal.

"This is an agreement for $10 million that benefits the city and the rideshare
companies, not the [taxi]drivers. "Based on what I see right now, the only
thing that it creates an unfair balance."

Of course it "fails to meet that goal," because Uber coughed up more
protection money than you did.

See, that's the problem with buying politicians. They never stay bought.

Reasonable people might say, why not just create single-occupancy restrooms
for the folks who can't figure out if they're a boy or a girl? Hah! That's
"discriminatory," worse even than the Jim Crow South's notion of "separate
but equal," and
totally unacceptable to the Obama administration.

The Obama administration is suing yet another school district for refusing to
allow a biological teenage male to use the girls' locker room, restroom, and
shower facilities.

Yesterday, the federal government found a the school in violation of a new
interpretation of Title IX, a 1972 law designed to prevent sex discrimination.

A male student who identifies as female sued Township High School District
211 in 2014 for access to the female locker room.

The district said the student could use a separate, private room instead.

This wasn't good enough for the ACLU, however, which represented the male
student in a complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education (DoE)'s
Office for Civil Rights.

John Knight, the LGBT and HIV Project Director of the ACLU of Illinois, called
the decision "blatant discrimination."

"We're talking about somebody who is being denied fair and equal treatment as
compared to the other students, only because she [sic] is transgender," he said.

Please tell me his name isn't Lola…

Obama's EEOC is
likewise "ready" to jump into action the first time a North Carolina man
is denied access to a womens bathroom.

The federal agency that enforces anti-discrimination laws in workplaces told
BuzzFeed News it "stands ready" to investigate complaints from transgender
employees in North Carolina — where a new law bans transgender people
from government building restrooms that match their gender identity.

That sort of restriction in workplaces is prohibited by federal law, said
Chai Feldblum, one of five members of the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC).

The agency held last year that banning a transgender employee from restrooms
matching their gender in workplaces with 15 or more workers violates Title VII
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Feldblum and another EEOC official told
BuzzFeed News that federal law supersedes local and state laws.

Congress never listed "transgender" as a protected class in the Civil Rights
Act of 1964, but hey, when has what a law actually says affected
what Obama's progressive pinheads feel like they can do? Find a sympathetic
judge to legislate from the bench and presto!, a new "right" is born.

The LGBT fascists are fired up. "Bathroom Equality" is their new rallying cry.
PayPal publicly signalled their progressive bona fides by being the first major
corporation to boycott North Carolina. Nevermind that they're simultaneously
expanding into Cuba, where homosexuality is illegal and "LGBT
rights" are non-existent.

(And I'm sure Bruce Springsteen would rather forget that he once played
concerts in LGBT-unfriendly Zimbabwe and Ivory Coast, during his
ironicly-named "Human Rights Tour.")

And this year citizens all across these United States will likewise see that a
vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for coed bathrooms. That's why I want this
issue to remain in the spotlight, because it'll guarantee that sanity will
prevail and Ted Cruz will be our next president.

The Newark City Council on Wednesday voted unanimously to advance a measure
that would require that app-based ride share drivers pay to the city an annual
fee of $1,000 for a "Liberty License" to operate within city limits.

I'm pretty sure that "Liberty" and "License" don't ever belong in the same
sentence. Unless you're a protectionist hack, bought and paid for by the
taxi unions.

But the license would not allow drivers to pick up passengers at Newark Liberty
International Airport or Newark Penn Station, two areas that have been at the
center of a turf war between Uber and city cabbies.

Have you ever stood in the taxi line at Newark Airport? At 1 AM on a cold
January night? And waited over an hour for a dirty, smelly, loud, fume-belching
cab driven by a guy who doesn't understand English and has no clue where he's
going?

Because I have.

And it sucks.

Contrast that with Uber. I punch in my destination address and click a button.
The app tells me the fare (always less than the cab fare, which seems to go
up every other week). It tells me when the car will arrive, so I can stay
warm inside the terminal. When the driver arrives he texts me and I walk out
to his clean, comfortable car. His GPS guides him effortlessly to my
destination. I can watch our progress on an interactive map if I'm so
inclined. And when we arrive there are no unexpected hidden charges for
"tolls" or "extra baggage handling."

Taxi drivers complain of losing business to Uber drivers who connect with
passengers through a smart phone app.

No shit. I'll never take another cab again.

Uber is the essence of "Liberty."

I'm liberated from a complacent, inefficient monopoly.

And the drivers are liberated to earn a living as they see fit, unencumbered
by meddlesome bureaucrats.

So naturally the bureaucrats, and their campaign contributors, hate it.

The Newark city council has lost its' collective mind. Our Founding Fathers
would never have envisioned anything remotely resembling a "Liberty License."
It's completely antithetical to anything Liberty stands for.

Then again, the Founders never thought the downside to Freedom was that it
presented insufficient opportunities for graft.

[Uber] has been expanding rapidly throughout the most densely populated areas
of the state and says it now has about 13,000 drivers in New Jersey, including
2,000 who live in Newark.

That's 2,000 Newark voters who are going to lose their livelihood when they
can't afford to pay the vig. Nice going Mayor Baraka!

On the other hand, Baraka and his council cronies will continue to reap big
fat checks from the taxi companies, so there's that.

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry was cleared Wednesday of all criminal charges
against him related to allegations he misused his power while in office.

In a 6-2 ruling, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed the
abuse-of-power charge that had loomed over the former Republican governor
-- including during his short-lived presidential campaign, which ended last
September.

The charge was filed after Perry threatened — and then carried out
— a veto of state funding for a group of public corruption prosecutors
after the Democratic head of the unit refused to resign.

In the ruling, the court said veto power cannot be restricted by the courts
and that prosecution of a veto "violates separations of powers."

Perry's lawyer, Tony Buzbee, told The Associated Press it is "a shame that it
took that long to get something as weak and misguided as this to be dismissed."

In July, a lower appeals court dismissed another charge -- coercion by a
public servant — against Perry.

Perry, the longest-serving governor in Texas history, left office in January
2015 while facing the felony indictment handed down the previous summer by a
grand jury in Austin, a liberal bastion in otherwise mostly deeply conservative
Texas.

The process is the punishment. It's known as "lawfare," and it's how Democrats
roll. Perry, and
Wisconsin governor Scott Walker before him, were targeted, marginalized,
and victimized, all to ensure they couldn't garner the 2016 GOP presidential
nomination.

Look, I'm glad Rick Perry's nightmare is over. On the other hand, I'd be
even gladder if he was still contending for the GOP presidential nomination.

The process is the punishment.

The Democrats never needed to convict him. They only needed to sow FUD.

So, they threw mud on the wall, and waited to see what stuck.

Politics ain't beanbag. And if the Democrats want to throw out the rulebook,
well, why in the world are we still trying to be nice guys? Fuck 'em. Take
no prisoners. Find an out-of-the-way county prosecutor to indict Hitlery.
When her media sycophants cry fowl, indict them too. God knows the New York
Times is
guilty of violating the Espionage Act. Lock up Pinch Sulzberger and Carlos
Slim and every reporter who jeopardized national security.

"We should reverse the presumption of confirmation," Schumer said, according
to Politico. "The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford
to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by
another Alito." During the same speech, Schumer lamented that he hadn't managed
to block Bush's prior Supreme Court nominations.

Notably, when he made his remarks in 2007, Bush had about seven more months
remaining in his presidential term than Obama has remaining in his.

The Internet never forgets. Even when it's inconvenient for Democrats.

And if the Senate does filibuster his nominee, Obama won't be in any position
to complain either. Because a certain Illnois senator named Barack Obama
filibustered Samuel Alito. Which makes him the first president in U.S.
history with that dubious distinction.

There's also a New Jersey angle to all this, Democrat State Senate President
Steve Sweeney has
avoided holding confirmation hearings on Chris Christie's NJ Supreme Court
nominees for more than 3 years now. But that's not a crisis, because
a "temporary" Justice, who just happens to be a flaming liberal, serves as a
placeholder.

None of these facts will stop Democrats from whining of course. Nor will they
stop Obama from invoking every Alinskyite dirty trick in the book in pursuit
of putting another far-left progressive onto the Supreme Court. "The ends
justify the means" is their motto, except when it's Republicans who are
using their rules against them. Mitch McConnell had better be ready, and
steadfast.

An ordinance in Houston that provided far-reaching nondiscrimination rights for
gay and transgender people went down in flames on Tuesday night — and it
wasn't remotely close.

The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance — Proposition 1 on the local ballot
would have extended bans on employment and housing discrimination based on
race, religion, sex, national original and other classifications to gay people,
bisexual people and transgender people.

Foes of the law focused like a laser beam on the transgender aspect of the law.
They characterized it as the "bathroom ordinance," saying it would allow men
who wear women's clothes — and sexual predators — to use public
women's bathrooms. They also said the ordinance would conflict with religious
liberty and generate a raft of litigation against Houston's small businesses.

By the wee hours of Tuesday morning, 95 percent of the ballots had been counted
and 61 percent of voters opposed Proposition 1,
according to The Texas Tribune.

Common sense, right?

But in a topsy-turvy world where Bruce Jenner can put on a dress and be crowned
"Woman of the Year" it's only a matter of time before the forces of
depravity
rise up again to promote the transgender insanity.

In fact, they're already doing just that in Chicago. A boy, pretending to be a
girl, demanded to use the girls locker room in his high school. The school, not
wanting to be labeled "trans-phobic" (whatever the bloody hell that
means!) bent over backwards to accommodate him. To which Obama said,
"not enough."

President Barack Obama's Department of Education has ordered a suburban Chicago
school to allow a boy who claims to be a girl into the girls' locker room,
whether or not the girls or their parents like it.

The federal decision about who gets to use each toilet and shower in a distant
Chicago school came after a male student sued a high school in Palatine, a
northwestern suburb of Chicago. The suit claims that the student's civil rightsT
were violated by a school rule which provided the two sexes their own restrooms
and locker rooms.

The school offered this singular student a special area for changing clothes
and using the restroom. But the boy and his lawyer instead demanded that school
officials submit to his claim that he is female and so can use the girls'
facilities.

A boy who says he's a girl is either (a) mentally ill, or (b) a pervert looking
for cheap thrills. Or, quite possibly, both. But we aren't allowed to say that
in public, because the Social Justice Warriors have decreed that whatever
anyone "feels" is automatically valid, no matter how idiotic or repugnant
it really is.

Coming soon, Abdul brings his pet goat to the prom. It's the love that dare
not speak its name, yet. Because remember, Love Wins!

Sanity? Yeah, sanity lost a long time ago. And everyone has to be inconvenienced
just so one Special Snowflake can have his 15 minutes of fame. If that isn't
tyranny, I don't know what is.

A prominent Black Lives Matter activist has offered a defense of violent
looters who plundered U.S. cities like Ferguson and Baltimore in a lecture
series delivered at Yale.

DeRay McKesson, 30, was invited to the prestigious school to lecture on the
movement, which began in earnest after unarmed black teen Michael Brown was
killed by a white cop in Ferguson. Missouri.

McKesson was hired for a two-part series, and as part of the preparation for
the for-credit course at Yale's School of Divinity, he told students to read
an article which describes looting as a 'righteous tactic'.

When challenged on his inclusion of the material by
Fox News, McKesson doubled down by drawing a comparison between looters
and patriots at the Boston Tea Party.

He told the news outlet: 'The relationship and tension between protest and
property destruction is something that America has grappled with since the
Revolutionary War and the Boston Tea Party.'

'The reading... allowed us to explore all sides of the American historical
relationships and tensions present in protest.'

The statement implies the recent looters, who caused millions of dollars of
damage and were roundly criticized by political leaders, are part of the same
tradition as the Sons of Liberty, who launched the Tea Party protest and
eventually ushered in an independent United States.

Free Stuff Matters!

Which, of course, is the heart and soul of progressive politics, from FDR to
Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton. So I guess it's refreshing
to hear someone say it so clearly. Usually they obfuscate, talking about a
"living wage" or a "helping hand" or "public assistance," occasionally
lapsing into "wealth redistribution."

Well then, looting is the ultimate in "wealth redistribution," isn't it?

Take what you want, when you want, how you want. And why not? There were no
consequences. No one was arrested. No property was reclaimed. Sure, most of
the destroyed businesses didn't rebuild, but that's no skin off Mr. McKesson's
back; he's moved on up to a cushy sinecure at Yale.

To believe that the looters in Ferguson who walked off with TV's, food, drugs,
and liquor are the same as the patriots who dumped British tea into Boston
Harbor might be the most idiotic analogy I've ever heard. Those looters in
Ferguson, Baltimore and elsewhere were uninterested in politics and totally
concerned with their own personal gratification.

If Black Lives Really Matter, where are the protests in Chicago and
Newark and Detroit and Camden? Black lives are snuffed out there with alarming
regularity. Oh, right, they're being killed by other Black people, so their
deaths can't be so easily exploited to advance a false narrative of police
brutality and racism.

Instead, the hypocritical world of progressive politics somehow postulates
that the Black killers of other Blacks are the
Real Victims, because, wait for it, racism, or poverty, or
something.

And in Mr. McKesson's group's worldview the cure is revolution. Which I
suppose is how he came to adopt that inane analogy with the Boston Tea Party.
Sadly though, their revolution is intended to resemble the trainwreck of
Zimbabwe built on the ashes of Rhodesia rather than the greatness of America
erected by our forefathers on the foundation of equality.

The nation's second most influential court handed a partial win to Dick Heller
on Friday in a case challenging Washington, D.C.'s gun laws.

Heller is best known for winning a landmark Supreme Court case in 2008, in
which the court ruled 5-4 that the Second Amendment protects a person's right
to bear arms for self-defense.

In a 2-1 decision Friday, a three-member panel of judges on the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the city's requirements that force gun
owners to register long guns, get fingerprinted, photographed and appear in
person when registering a gun, pay a registration fee and complete a firearms
safety and training course.

The court then struck down four requirements that force gun owners to bring
the gun they're registering with them, re-register a firearm every three years
and pass a test on D.C. gun laws. The court also did away with a rule that
prohibits gun owners from registering more than one pistol within a 30-day
period.

Chris Christie take note! New Jersey also has that ridiculous "one gun a month"
law. Given today's ruling, our governor should revisit its troubling
affirmation last year by the Third Circuit. A split decision between two
circuit courts is grounds for appeal to SCOTUS, and this is one area where
our rights are clearly being infringed.

Another Second Amendment issue SCOTUS needs to address is carry permit
reciprocity. It's idiotic that a gun registration in one jurisdiction is
invalid everywhere else in America. Drivers licenses don't work that way.
Same-sex "marriages" certainly don't work that way either. And a diploma
from East Nowhereville High School is just as good as one from Sidwell
Friends, accepted by any college or employer nationwide.

NJ police have established quite the cottage industry in targeting and
arresting legal gun owners from out of state whose only "crime" is driving
on one of our highways. The insanity has to stop.

Remember too that
Detroit recently loosened their draconian gun laws with no adverse effects.
It's high time the rest of America followed suit.

Danny Chasteen and his girlfriend, Susan Rick, thought they had gotten their
big break last month when Chasteen won $250,000 from the Illinois Lottery.
Instead, they got an IOU.

The Chicago Tribune reported that disbursements of Illinois Lottery
winnings of more than $25,000 have been halted because the state doesn't have
a budget.

Under state law, checks for such winnings must be cut by the state comptroller's
office and, since lawmakers have yet to approve a budget, the office cannot
release those funds, the newspaper said.

But you can bet your bottom dollar the state is still collecting
money, budget or no budget. Just try telling them you can't pay your taxes
because you haven't adopted a household budget yet. I'm sure they'll be
extra sympathetic.

And here's another sure bet. Illinois is still paying government workers'
salaries. And retired public employees' pension checks aren't being held either.
Bureaucrats protect their own. It's you and me who they don't give a shit about.

... if the delays stretch on indefinitely, Smith said, word will spread —
especially if it affects people who play regularly.

"If that news just continues to go viral, and it goes back to their
neighborhoods and people are talking about it, I think it could have
an impact," Smith said. "And even if it affects sales by a percent or two,
that's bad for the lottery."

Now, about the Illinois fiscal follies, this is only going to get worse,
friends. Not only is Illinois a high-tax-and-even-higher-spending state, but
its public employee pension obligations are completely unmanagable and the
state is headed for either a default, a bankruptcy or a desperate plea for
some sort of bailout. The slow budgeting process is part of the problem here
too. It's not only lack of money. But it's not that hard to pass a budget when
you know what you have to spend and you're willing to stick to it. Here in
Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder and the Republican legislature regularly pass
budgets not just months ahead of time, but years ahead of time. Why can't
they do that in Illinois? Because Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner is trying to
bring fiscal sanity to the state and the Democrat legislature is resisting
with all its might.

How many other states are sitting on budgetary time bombs? California. New
York. And of course, New Jersey, just to name 3.

Can you imagine how people here will take it if the NJ lottery stops paying
winners because Steve Sweeney decides to write a $5 billion dollar check to
the teachers union pension fund?

Stiffing lottery winners is like eating your seed corn. Once word gets out
the state won't pay, the players will find other outlets for their gambling
fix. Perhaps ones where making sure they pay taxes on their winnings isn't
exactly a high priority, if you know what I mean. Add that drop in tax revenue
to the drop in lottery sales, and the pain at the state treasury just got
a lot bigger.

Ergo, if Illinois thinks they have problems now, just wait a few more months.
At some point they're gonna stop paying guys who matter, and then the jig
is up.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, often a swing vote, joined the court's four liberal
members in upholding the use of so-called "disparate impact" cases.

Everybody's a racist! We've got the spreadsheets to prove it!

The ruling is a win for housing advocates who argued that the housing law
allows challenges to race-neutral policies that have a negative impact on
minority groups. The Justice Department has used disparate impact lawsuits
to win more than $500 million in legal settlements from companies accused
of bias against black and Hispanic customers.

In upholding the tactic, the Supreme Court preserved a legal strategy that
has been used for more than 40 years to attack discrimination in zoning laws,
occupancy rules, mortgage lending practices and insurance underwriting. Every
federal appeals court to consider it has upheld the practice, though the
Supreme Court had never previously taken it up.

Writing for the majority, Kennedy said that language in the housing law banning
discrimination "because of race" includes disparate impact cases. He said such
lawsuits allow plaintiffs "to counteract unconscious prejudices and disguised
animus that escape easy classification" under traditional legal theories.

What's discrimination? Whatever Al Sharpton says it is!

It's a helluva way to run a railroad.

"In this way disparate-impact liability may prevent segregated housing patterns
that might otherwise result from covert and illicit stereotyping," Kennedy said.

Does your neighborhood have enough black people? No? Pay up!

And then drag 'em in, kicking and screaming if you have to, or you'll keep
paying up. Welcome to the race hustlers' biggest wet dream ever. Get ready
for a cottage industry of roving social justice warriors rolling into towns
across America with census data in tow. "Nice little neighborhood you got
here, now pay us to keep quiet about your unconscious racism."

Instead of working for the American dream like our forefathers did, SCOTUS
has now established it as every minority resident's birthright. Equality
of Outcome is henceforth the law of the land. No one can have more than
his neighbor, because the disparate impact of your success is de facto
proof of your guilt. And the guilty must be punished.

The phrase "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance does not violate the rights
of those who don't believe in God and does not have to be removed from the
patriotic message, a Superior Court judge has ruled.

In dismissing a lawsuit brought against the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School
District, Superior Court Judge David Bauman said the reference to God in the
pledge is more of a declaration of patriotism than it is of religious beliefs.

Bauman, who heard arguments on the issue in November, also noted that the word
"God" is such an integral part of New Jersey's constitution that it has become
a recognition of the state's history, not religion.

"The Pledge of Allegiance, in this historical context, is not to be viewed,
and has never been viewed, as a religious exercise," Bauman wrote in his
21-page decision issued on Wednesday.

He said the pledge is a way to "transmit core values of duty, honor, pride and
fidelity to country."

The ruling comes after the American Humanist Association sued the
Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District on behalf of an unidentified family
claiming the phrase "Under God" violated the protections given to atheists and
others who don't believe in God or gods.

It's also the sixth time the American Humanist Association has lost its attempt
to have the phrase removed from the pledge by filing suits in various federal
and state courts.

They came venue shopping to New Jersey, hoping our famously activist judiciary
would be sympathetic to their pettiness.

Nope.

That's because another student, 18 year old Samantha Jones, a senior at
Highland Regional High School,
fought back.

Jones fought back, telling Fox News last November that the phrase "acknowledges
that our rights don't come from the government but from a higher power, so
they can't take away the rights."

She described America as a country of many beliefs and claimed all of those
beliefs — including those of atheists — are protected by "one
nation under God."

"I don't think that it's as much about religion as it is about our rights.
Everyone has the right to remain silent but they don't have the right to
silence everybody else," she told Fox News.

After the school district and Jones won their case, she said in a statement
released Friday that "I'm so grateful the court decided that kids like me
shouldn't be silenced just because some people object to timeless American
values."

"Ever since I was little, I've recited the Pledge of Allegiance because it
sums up the values that make our country great. The phrase 'under God' protects
all Americans-including atheists-because it reminds the government that it can't
take away basic human rights because it didn't create them," she said.

Bravo Miss Jones, bravo!

No one has the right to tell us what, or what not, to say.

Sadly though, the American Humanist Association vows to appeal. They can't
let this go, because they won't be happy until everyone is as miserable as
they are.

Last night when I heard that the Grand Jury
cleared Officer Darren Wilson of all charges in the shooting death of
"gentle giant" Michael Brown I immediately had one thought — like
Ray Donovan, which office does Darren Wilson go to to get his reputation back?

Not the newsrooms of our media barons. I made the mistake of listening to
George Stephanopolous this morning, parroting the Brown family's attorney
blaming "the system" for failing to indict Wilson. "The family hoped 'the
system' would work." Followed by, "'the system' let them down."

Here's a newsflash George. "The system" worked. Just like it did
when O.J. Simpson was found "not guilty" by a jury of his peers. You may
not like the result, but we are a nation of laws* and
it's time for everyone to remember that.

Instead, we get "justice" through …
looting. And, of course,
rioting. Because smashing a window to grab a bag of chips and a couple of
forties is exactly like courageously refusing to sit in the back of the bus.

The real irony? "Protesters" robbing Ferguson Market and Liquor,
again, even though it was plastered with pro-Michael-Brown posters. The
mob doesn't care who's
livelihood they
destroy. And our supposed "leaders"
play them like pawns.

I'm thinking, if you wanted to set race relations back 50 years, you couldn't
do a better job than the organizers behind these "spontaneous" demonstrations.

Oh, wait, read
this statement from the Congressional Black Caucus. Then weep for America.

A newly instituted policy for city police officers may force them to deliver
a less than ideal response to victims of assault and other minor crimes
looking to make a complaint: Take it to court.

In an Oct. 23 memo obtained by NJ Advance Media, Chief Anthony Campos informed
officers that they should refer any victim complaining about crimes such as
\simple assault, criminal mischief and harassment to file complaints in
municipal court, rather than compile an incident report themselves.

The strategy was instituted "in order to streamline operations and make better
usage of police resources", Campos said in the memo.

It also covers disorderly persons offenses such as improper behavior and
offensive language, as well as complaints about bad checks and false
information provided to police.

If you come to Newark, please try to only get mugged between the hours of
8 AM and 4 PM, Monday through Friday, otherwise the courthouse won't be
open for you to stagger into and file a complaint. I guess you could camp
out on the steps if you're really banged up, or go home and try phoning it
in tomorrow.

Welcome to the exact opposite of Rudy Guiliani's "broken windows" policy.
He cleaned up New York by focusing on quality-of-life crimes, because a
city that won't tolerate squeegee men is one that's obviously inhospitable
to muggers, rapists, and murderers too.

Maybe they should give you one of those posters to hang up each time you have
to fill out your own police report. Or a cardboard cutout of a cop to put on
your porch. And if you contribute to his re-election fund, Baraka will text
one of his gangbanger buddies and ask him not to rob you again.

The State Department has quietly made plans to bring Ebola-infected doctors and
medical aides to the U.S. for treatment, according to an internal department
document that argued the only way to get other countries to send medical teams
to West Africa is to promise that the U.S. will be the world's medical backstop.

Some countries "are implicitly or explicitly waiting for medevac assurances"
before they will agree to send their own medical teams to join U.S. and U.N.
aid workers on the ground, the State Department argues in the undated four-page
memo, which was reviewed by The Washington Times.

"The United States needs to show leadership and act as we are asking others to
act by admitting certain non-citizens into the country for medical treatment
for Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) during the Ebola crisis," says the four-page
memo, which lists as its author Robert Sorenson, deputy director of the office
of international health and biodefense.

The city's first Ebola patient initially lied to authorities about his travels
around the city following his return from treating disease victims in Africa,
law-enforcement sources said.

Dr. Craig Spencer at first told officials that he isolated himself in his
Harlem apartment — and didn't admit he rode the subways, dined out and
went bowling until cops looked at his MetroCard the sources said.

Hey, flouting the rules worked for NBC's
Nancy Snyderman, right?. These doctors, they're smarter than us.

Hickox's lawyer insisted Tuesday that she was not under quarantine and said she
was seeking time to decompress at an undisclosed location in Maine. Steven
Hyman of the New York law firm McLaughlin & Stern told the Bangor Daily News
that Hickox will not comply with Maine's requirements to remain under
quarantine for 21 days.

"She doesn't want to agree to continue to be confined to a residence beyond
the two days," Hyman told the Daily news.

"The conditions that the state of Maine is now requiring Kaci to comply with
are unconstitutional and illegal and there is no justification for the state
of Maine to infringe on her liberty," Siegel explained to the Daily News.

Here's an idea. If she's gonna be out and about, why don't we give her the job
of escorting all of Obama's newly imported Ebola-infected foreigners on their
jaunts around town? We can't very well keep them locked up when his
own people aren't taking this thing seriously, can we?

And not for nothing, but where is "Ebola Czar" Ron Klain? He's like the
invisible man,
nobody's seen the guy, ever. Here's a pro tip Ron. If Chris Christie is the
Voice Of Reason, you're doing it wrong.

Then again, screwing up is the hallmark of this administration. If something
is bad for America, you can bet your bottom dollar they're for it.
Which is why they're so gung ho to bring Ebola patients to your town. Just
like all those illegal alien kids with Enterovirus D68, who knows where these
foreigners will end up. It's insane. And damned scary too.

"I want to use myself as an example just so people have sense of the science
here. I shook hands with, hugged and kissed, not the doctors, but a couple of
the nurses at Emory because of the valiant work that they did in treating one
of the patients."

You know, nurses like the two who are now sick and dying.

I can't believe anybody thought this was a good idea. Here you have one of
the deadliest viruses in the world, and you have the president of the United
States. Yeah, by all means, let's see if he can't get infected!

By choosing to
Do Nothing today, the Supreme Court has escalated the homosexual war on
religious freedom. The same-sex "marriage" juggernaut is now cleared to run
roughshod over Christians nationwide.

Many if not most observers expected the Supreme Court to take at least one of
the cases for which review was sought in which the issue of whether same-sex
marriage bans were constitutional was squarely presented.

None of the Supreme Court's decisions in DOMA or the Prop. 8 litigation
decided that issue.

But the Supreme Court did not take any of the cases, leaving in place Court of
Appeals decisions that seem to clear the way for same-sex marriages in numerous
states.

Like the man said, "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

Jonathan Adler writes that the Supreme Court might still take a case in
the future, but I don't see how that is realistic considering how expansive
the pending cases were in terms of geography. In the states for which review
was sought there will be marriages undertaken, a complicating factor if the
court were to rule in the future that same-sex marriage bans were not
unconstitutional.

Which means that in at least
30 states now, refusal to embrace same-sex "marriage" on religious grounds
is punishable as a matter of law. And it's only a matter of time before
religious freedom is eradicated nationwide.

"You can practice your religion," they'll say. Except
you can't earn a living while practicing it. That there is the antithesis
of Freedom and a crime against Liberty. No Founding Father would have
countenanced such a result.

Yet here we are, at the mercy of militant homosexuals, an intolerant minority
if I ever saw one, dictating de facto fascism under the guise of "equality."

Wanna bet the polygamists aren't salivating right now, with the pederasts
and incest-obsessed in tow? Licentiousness is all the rage, and if you cling
to some outdated notion of morality it's you who has the problem because the
law is no longer on your side.

You know what's coming. Catholic priests who refuse to perform same-sex
ceremonies will be subject to fines and vilification, because the homofascists
hate them even more than they resent the odd Christian baker, florist or
photographer. Adam and Steve want to sashay down the aisle at Saint Patrick's
Cathedral, and woe unto him who stands in their way.

Our First Amendment — "Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion" — was intended to give equal stature to
all religions. Alas in our now, ahem, "enlightened" age, up is down,
right is wrong, left is right, and only approved religions that comply with
the diktats of homosexuality are still permissable.

Shaneen Allen, the 27 year old Philadelphia single mother facing a New Jersey
State Prison term for bringing a Pennsylvania licensed handgun into New Jersey
has been offered entry into the Pre-Trial Intervention Program, according to a
report on
NBC10. (H/T
Save Jersey)

Atlantic County Prosecutor James McCain issued a statement which said that,
upon review, his rejection of Allen's application to the PTI program was
contrary to a 2008 "Graves Act" directive, according to NBC10.

According to the clarification a defendant may "avoid conviction for a Graves
Act crime by being admitted to the PTI program." The clarification also states
that under New Jersey law prosecutors are "not permitted to reject categorically
a defendant's application for PTI on the grounds that he or she is charged with
a crime that is subject to the presumption of imprisonment or a mandatory
minimum sentence."

Upon reviewing the clarification, McClain allowed Allen to enter the PTI
program.

"I determined that the defendant in this case should be offered the opportunity
to be admitted into the Atlantic County PTI Program and I have communicated
that determination to the Court and to defense counsel," McClain wrote in a
released statement. "In the next few weeks I will review similar cases that
are pending within our jurisdiction and make appropriate decisions following
the application of the factors sent out in the clarification."

McClain undoubtedly also "determined" he didn't have a leg to stand on once it
came out that he'd admitted Ray Rice into the same PTI program he
denied to Shaneen Allen. Because to the anti-gun nuts, beating your wife is
less of a problem than legally owning a gun in a neighboring state.

Why do I say that? Because even though I asked some of them, my local chapter
of Moms Demand Action wouldn't stand up for Ms. Allen. In fact they refused
to comment on her situation at all.

And I'm sure they don't care that her life has been effectively ruined anyway.

While Allen's admission into the program is a very favorable result, she and
her young sons have suffered greatly due to McClain's error in not admitting
her to the PTI program when she first was first arrested last October.

MMM spoke to Allen this afternoon prior to her being informed that McClain
had changed his position on PTI.

Allen spent 40 days in Atlantic County prior to making bail. Fortunately,
she was able to retain her job upon making bail. Yet when he case became
publicized in July, she lost her job. Allen told MMM that her rent is five
months past due and that her electric had been turned off last week. Her
sons have been staying with their father and she has been staying with friends.

New Jersey's attorney general has agreed to clarify the PTI rules, thereby
making it clear that the program should be available to those in Allen's
position. This is a considerable triumph of commonsense over zealotry, and
a step forward for New Jersey, which has some of the worst firearms laws in
the country. Nobody should have his or her life ruined for a simple mistake
— especially while exercising a basic constitutional right.

Fourteen simple words — The right of the people to keep and bear
arms shall not be infringed — whose meaning could not be more
obvious. Unless you're a liberal.

Department of Justice attorneys for the Internal Revenue Service told Judicial
Watch on Friday that Lois Lerner's emails, indeed all government computer
records, are backed up by the federal government in case of a government-wide
catastrophe. The Obama administration attorneys said that this back-up system
would be too onerous to search. The DOJ attorneys also acknowledged that the
Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) is investigating
this back-up system.

"Too onerous to search" them?

Puh-lease.

The guys at Google could search those backup files with one arm tied behind
their backs.

Of course, the guys at Google don't want to search for Lerner's "lost"
emails. They're in the tank for Obama, and judging by the emails that have
already been released, the stuff on those backup tapes has gotta be truly
incendiary.

Fortunately there are many other search providers. Surely one of them will
recognize the marketing opportunity inherent in uncovering emails the, ahem,
experts, have deemed impossible to find.